Danielle Girard

Getting down to business....

2008-03-02T14:35:00.005-07:00

I think I've set some sort of new record for time lapses between blogs. Clearly, I'm not winning any blogger-of-the-year awards. There are those writers who write everyday (writing other than their books, I mean) and I'm not one of them. I don't keep a journal, I write as little correspondence as possible. I write a lot of checks but I don't suppose that really counts, does it?

And here I am, ready to report. Much has happened since my last entry, which I'm embarrassed to admit was almost a year ago. YIKES! This is even less like a newsletter now...I've got to pick up the pace.

Okay, on to what I've been up to. Two years ago, I entered a masters program for a MFA (Masters in Fine Arts) for Creative Writing. I graduated in January. I chose a low-residency program. Because of the pesky business of life and children (not pesky children, to be clear), I needed something that didn't require my attendance daily, or even weekly. I looked into all of the ones offered and applied to a few, but I chose Queens University in Charlotte, NC. Check it out: http://www.queens.edu/graduate/programs/creative_writing.asp

I'd actually selected a different one when the acceptances came in, but the director at Queens called and he changed my mind. Over two years, I worked with 4 different, brilliant, instructors. Each has written more than one incredible book. Check them out: Elizabeth Strout, Jane Alison, Naeem Murr and Fred Leebron.

Most "genre writers" (that's what they call us suspense authors, lumping us in with romance writers, mystery writers, sci-fi writers) don't pursue an MFA and I had my share of nerves when I headed out to Charlotte the first time. There is a fairly prevalent disdain for genre fiction among some literary writers and I was a little concerned about that. Also, I don't aspire to write high-brow literature (a good thing since I couldn't do it to save my life). But my worries were unfounded. If there were people with disdain for my style of writing, I didn't run into them. It was an incredible two years, something I'd encourage serious writers to pursue. It's changed how I write.

To graduate, one most complete a thesis. For many, this is a collection of short stories. For others, a novel or part of on. I wrote a novel. It's not a suspense novel. It's a story of a woman with three children, an attorney by trade, torn between her desire for a career and her desire to be present for her children. In it's own way, it's still very much my sort of book. There is suspense, the prominent woman character I usually find at the center of my books.

At the same time, I worked on One Clean Shot. But the process of writing two books is considerably slower than the process of writing two. But I have a finished draft of each. Now, because my agent of nearly ten years and I have parted ways, it's time to dig into the business of writing. The business begins with an agent....

If it's quiet in here, the good news is that I'm working on a new novel. And because I'm not patient either, I'm giving you the very first snippet of One Clean Shot, Hailey Wyatt's story. Back soon, I hope....

Hailey

My back pressed to the cold, gray exterior of the Hall of Justice, waiting for Hal to pick me up, the lessons of this past year still feel like wounds freshly-stitched, bones that ought to be encased in plaster. Of course, there is no suture or cast for these injuries, only the steady flow of time dulls the pain's sharp edge until it becomes a memory that, like old breaks, only aches occasionally. We talk a lot about that in therapy, what I have learned, where I went wrong, and how that awareness can bring me back, if back is where I want to be.

Around me, officers stream in and out of the department doors and though I know none of their names, we are as close as siblings, closer. In each set of eyes is the truth of our world, that set against the grim reality of this building and the jobs we do inside it, understanding what went wrong doesn't bring us back. Hindsight has no value for the lives that have ended, and it is worthless to those who feel nothing but hollow grief or oppressive rage.

This may be as good a place as any to begin, the point where one extreme melted with the other and became what we considered normal, whatever invention that is. Back then, the murders were not lit with the glamour that radiates from the story now, a spurious glow only Hollywood can shine on something otherwise simple and tragic.

What have I learned? What lessons could I pass on to the next rookie who asks for a roadmap to follow? Only the most seemingly useless of advice: that what looks straightforward may be complex, something that appears so steeped in politics may be wholly apolitical, and a piece of evidence may be trash or it may be the very marrow of the case. Should I have recognized it sooner, seen what was coming? It is a question that can only be asked afterward when an answer has no value.

Summed up, the lessons learned fall terribly short of clear and useful. There is no wisdom to cling to in the world of crime and criminals, no hard and fast rules that can be applied. Some call me a seasoned inspector, but the seasoning adds only flavor; it does not invent ingredients nor does it prepare the dish. Each case must still be created from scratch, each officer no better than an amateur delinquent making her first pipe bomb and one small miscalculation means someone may lose a finger or her life.

So I am asked: why would you pick a career where there is no learning curve, only a straight flat line, where the only tangible lesson is to learn nothing so well that you are blind to anything? Why would you insist on clinging to it, as I have, even when it seems to want nothing more than to eject you? Maybe that is all I have learned, that no one picks this career; it picks you.

Just as it did me.

For the moment...

2007-04-05T10:12:00.000-06:00

For those of you who keep track of things like books released, you might notice I'm a bit behind. Quite a good bit, actually. And falling further by the moment. But, I'm doing something new, a little different, something I've wanted to do for some time. I'm still writing suspense (no need to start sending angry letters), but I'm writing them a little differently. It's sort of a hard thing to explain, exactly, but as soon as I am able, I'll post a bit of the new one so you can see what I mean. At any rate, I've been working very diligently at it but have, at the same time, felt a little out of my element.

Just before a wonderful week in Palm Springs for spring break, I sent off the first third of the new book, ONE CLEAN SHOT, to my editor. Fingers crossed and breath held (at least for the first few minutes of our trip), I hoped she'd have good things to say. And for a few days, I have to confess, I actually forgot about it....okay, not FULL days but parts of them.

Returning home, I was swept into the minutiae that come with returning from vacation: mail, laundry, the yard and it was a full week later when my editor and I finally spoke. Her first words were, "This is going to be an awkward conversation..." And I thought, "Oh, no."

"All I really have for you is praise," she said and went on to express how much she had enjoyed the pages, how the characters had grown and developed, the writing...Halfway through our conversation, I notced that my notebook, which had been open to write down her suggestions and criticisms, was blank, and soon, I found myself taking notes on her kudos. A full page of thing she'd liked. Wow. At the end of our conversation, she said that she'd finished reading the pages for the first time at night, sitting in bed with her husband. And when she'd turned the last page, he'd asked, "How was it?"

And she'd said, "It's damn good."

Those were the last words on that page in my notebook. "Damn good. Damn good. Damn good." I've been repeating it like a little mantra.

Then, she asked me, "How much more have you written?"

Eek! I thought. NONE. But I am determined not to worry with that. The beginning is damn good and that is perfect for the moment...the rest, I can only pray, will follow....

When you can't shut them up...

2007-01-21T00:58:00.000-07:00

Lately, I'm finding I am experiencing something opposite to writer's block. I'm in the middle of two books simultaneously (something I've never done before) and find that whenever I'm not writing, I'm still writing. That is, the characters are up there, talking away: bickering, negotiating, some times all out brawling. This is particularly the case when I'm trying to get some sleep. The moment the room is quiet and dark, they're like mice who crawl out of their holes and start tearing things apart.

I am not exactly complaining. I've been on the other end of the spectrum, sitting in front of the computer when nothing comes, trying to cajole them, tempt them, arm-wrestle them into one pithy line. On the other hand, as you can see from this post, I'm up at all hours and while the characters are running hard, I'm not sure I know where they're going.

And all those voices, well, it can be a little disconcerting...

Book Clubs....

2006-11-17T10:45:00.000-07:00

I have a confession. It's ugly, I've buried it deep, but here it is: I detest book signings. Some authors are wonderful at sitting at a table in the middle of the bookstore, grinning with the stack of her books beside her and happily chatting with passersby, answering questions about the latest Grisham novel or directing customers to the lavatory. But, I cannot stand them. I'm not a salesperson. It's why I sit in a dimly lit room behind a computer all day!

But one thing I've always loved doing, from day one, is visiting book clubs. It's such a kick, talking to people who have read the book, answering questions about the characters, the plot, the process. Now, that is fun.

One time, someone at a book club noticed that the book's villain had a little ritual be performed just before each crime and she'd only realized afterward, complimenting on such a clever clue. I sat dumbfounded. "Huh?" Blushing, I confessed that I had no idea what she was talking about. But sure enough, as we went back through the book, she was right!

Since the release of The Rookie Club, I've done another handful of book groups and was at one two nights ago when someone suggested that I ought to offer to do them on my website. Right, I thought. I'll just jet between Omaha and Deluth and Mobile and Houston and my husband and kids will be thrilled. "You can call in!" someone suggested. Wow, I thought! What a great idea!! And so I'm going to do it. Call in to book clubs!

I'm in the process of setting up a page on my website where readers can contact me about just that. You name the date and time, give me a phone number to reach you, and I'll call in and join your book club. I hope some of you will think about it. I'd love to hear your thoughts and I know you'll have revelations about the books that I've missed. That's the best part of all....

To find out more, go to: www.daniellegirard.com/bookclub.htm

Hope to hear from you!

Danielle

Older, wiser.....or just older?

2006-11-17T10:33:00.000-07:00

Every time I begin a post, I swear it starts, "I can't believe it's already..." So I'm going to skip that part and say it's clearly been WAY too long since I've paid a visit to tell you what I'm up to. The reason I haven't told you is it's kind of embarassing because mostly, I've been shopping. Sometimes I can spend a whole half-day going to Staples for paperclips. There are a lot of different types of paperclips, you know? More recently, though, I've been labeling the shopping "Christmas shopping" but truth-be-told, I'm just staying out of the house to avoid the computer, which is starting to hiss at me. Why is it hissing? Well, I'm not positive but I think it's either because it's feeling lonely or else it's breaking down from lack of use. That's right. I'm procrastinating.

If you haven't already heard, this is a famous writer skill, developed almost before the writer has learned to write. Some of the really great writers like Hemingway and Cheever procrastinated with a bottle, sometimes one in each hand. But for me, a credit card is just as good and it's easier to drive afterwards, safer, too. Now, though, I've been told it's time to stop. Not only is the computer hissing, but my husband is starting up, too. And I got a call from one of my credit card companies and I could've sworn she was hissing, too. So, it's back to the grind.

Honestly, aside from the shopping, how have I spent my last...uh, how many months has it been since I was in here....Yikes! Five months? Well, I have, truthfully, (or almost truthfully) been spending much of my time writing and researching on the next book, and also working on my masters in creative writing, which seems to require reading several very dense, long books every week. (Like Anna Karenina.) I know Tolstoy would agree when I say that this is not a book that was meant to be read in a week, or even a month. At any rate, I still love it, and am still chugging along.

In more exciting news, I'm working on a new idea for the site and promise (now this time, I REALLY REALLY mean it) to post it in the next day or two...so stop back by and in the meantime, happy reading!!

Danielle

The Power of Disney....

2006-06-22T15:12:00.000-06:00

I've just come from spending a week at Disneyland and there is nothing quite like the Magical Kingdom to epitomize the power of fantasy. Of my two children, one did NOT want to go to Disneyland because he had NO idea what it meant and no description we could possibly come up with reassured him enough that it truly is the happiest place on earth, at least for five-year-olds. My other child was positively thrilled because, in her imagination, Disneyland was a place where the princesses wandered on rose petals and stopped to remind young girls that they, too, could be princesses. And even when this particular fantasy failed to be realized, Tinkerbell poised on her lily pad in the parade, the roller coasters, the rainbow of cotton candy all served to make up for the fact that the princesses were harder than expected to come by. And while the other adults around me enjoyed the experience, I don't know that they thrived on all the made-up tales like I did. While we started with the ones that Disney had already written--Snow White and her Dwarfs, Alice down in Wonderland, and the never-ending feud between Donald and Mickey, to which I must add that Donald still looks ticked off--these stories were just the tip of Disney's pink iceberg for us. The kids and I imagined where, exactly, Mickey and Minnie lived and whether or not they had gotten married and if they were settled into matrimony, my daughter wanted to know, how many children did they have? My son and I agreed that surely, in Disneyland, Buzz Lightyear and Mr. Incredible were good friends, neighbors, too. The whole place had to have been divided between good and the evil. Who got the pink castle? I asked. Definitely the good guys, both kids agreed. I thought so, too. The pink castle and the It's a Small World ride, too--that place was like a castle, too. Then, we theorized who was meaner, Ursula or Captain Hook, and who would win if they battled. Ursula, my daughter argued because she's so much bigger and Hook only has one hand. But my son countered with the idea that Captain Hook would just pop her like a balloon with his hook. The adults (uh, adults other than me, I mean) took to walking well ahead of us as we made up our stories, but we little folks ate it up. And I, in particular, confess to eating it up. All of it--day after day, even to the point of answering questions on the second leg of our trip home. While I often come from a week of vacation and feel like my "inner writer" is having seizures with the need to express herself, I actually feel wonderfully sedate after Disneyland. I think it had to do with all the storytelling we did....of course, it's also possible that it was all that cotton candy.

Danielle

Today's the day....

2006-06-06T13:18:00.000-06:00

The Rookie Club releases today....There's something bittersweet about the day a book hits the stores, probably like letting your children go off to college. The idea that you have done everything you can do and now it's in someone else's hands. So that's it. I'm done. I think it's a fast-paced ride and I hope you love it because I had a blast getting it to here.

Write and let me know what you think: danielle@daniellegirard.com
Happy reading,
Danielle

Time flies...

2006-05-19T21:33:00.000-06:00

It's only three weeks now until The Rookie Club comes out...I can hardly believe how fast it's gone by. Review copies, mailings, interviews...all of it makes the hours flip by like still shots on a film reel. My head is reeling, too. Tomorrow, I go back to school for another 8 days and I can hardly believe it's been four and a half months since I was there...

The reviews for the book have been wonderful. Here's what a few of my colleagues have to say about The Rookie Club:

"Utterly riveting. Girard delivers a gritty new cop series with a twist--a female investigators club that can beat out the old boys network any day of the week. Tightly written, brilliantly plotted, THE ROOKIE CLUB will keep you guessing...and anxiously waiting for more."
Lisa Gardner, NY Times Bestselling author of Gone

"Compelling and compassionate, with three of the strongest female characters to have graced the genre in years. With The Rookie Club, Danielle Girard has established herself as one of the best of the new breed of mystery writers."
John Connolly, NY Times bestselling author of Bad Men

"The Rookie Club is one of those fast-paced, what's-going-to-happen-next stories that grabs your curiosity and your emotions and then shakes the hell out of both."
Jonathon King, bestselling author of A Killing Night

Not that I needed any further distraction, but my publisher's PR department recommended I set up a site at myspace.com. Ever been there? Wow. What a place. Something like 77 MILLION users. Thanks to a lot of help from my masterful webmaven, Sue, I've got quite a fun little page set up there. Check it out at: www.myspace.com/therookieclub. And we've got some fun things going. First, there's the daily drawing for a copy of The Rookie Club going until June 6. Enter at www.daniellegirard.com/raffle2.html.

And now, we're doing a photo contest. There are all sorts of these going on over at myspace.com, so we thought we'd do one of our own. Feel free to join in. Here's the scoop:

The contest will begin June 6th (when The Rookie Club is available) and run until July 6th. The 1st place winner will get $100 at iTunes or Amazon.com (whichever he/she prefers). First runner up will get $25.

Rules: the photo must incorporate an actual copy of The Rookie Club (or more than one, if you prefer). Please do not destroy or damage the book for your photo (it’s upsetting to the writer!). Also, nothing that will get us in trouble with myspace. (This means no nudity, profanity, etc.)

The winner will be selected by a vote of myspace peers. So, once we get going, you want to have your "friends" come “comment” on which is the best!!

Click here to check it out: www.myspace.com/therookieclub

Spring Break

2006-03-08T19:36:00.000-07:00

My family and I are heading out of town in a couple of days for Spring Break and as I was sitting down this evening, I realized that spring break implies spring. Spring means that another season has almost ended and that means I am nowhere near keeping up to my monthly post. I came online tonight thinking, oh boy, I let five or six weeks go by and realize that no, it's been 2 1/2 months. Oops! Well, despite this shortfall of mine, 2006 has been an exciting year so far. My entrance back into school has been nothing short of outstanding. I've been consuming books, left and right, that I never knew existed and certainly wouldn't have thought to read. A few I suggest are Spending by Mary Gordon, Amy & Isabelle by Elizabeth Strout, This Boy's Life by Tobias Wolfe, Another Bullshit Night in Suck City by Nick Flynn (you can not beat the title, can you?) and The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon. I've read those and two dozen more, all wonderful.

On the news front here, the first chapters of THE ROOKIE CLUB are up and on the site. The book won't be out until June, but we'll begin to raffle advanced copies off in early May. So check it out. Also, Doubleday Book Club has announced they'd like to pick up the title, so it will be available in hardback through Doubleday as well as its two partners: The Literary Guild and The Mystery Guild.

Though June is still a ways off, I do have a single booksigning planned for Friday, June 9th at Once Upon A Crime in Minneapolis. Watch the site for more details.

And finally, I'm busy at work on the story after The Rookie Club tentatively titled ONE CLEAN SHOT...More on that soon...well, relatively soon, I hope.

Another ending...a new beginning

2005-12-30T14:15:00.000-07:00

Some years, December 31 comes and goes so quickly, I hardly even notice that a year has just clicked by. This year feels different. Maybe it's because this year felt like a turning point for me. I sold a book after a long hiatus. Okay, it was only 3 years and many authors will tell you that's NOTHING, but for me it felt like 3 decades. I put an end to what felt like a terrible drought. Of course, it's hard to know when the next one will come. But for now, it rains gently and that is enough.

I'm also almost done with the new book, or a draft of it. Another ending and a good one, I hope. The end of the draft also marks, of course, the beginning of many revisions. And a new beginning--time to think about the next story. The next book.

For me, perhaps the most significant beginning is that I am starting school. In 9 days, I'm going back to get my masters in fine arts for creative writing. A beginning, I guess, but an end to something, too. What, I can't quite put to words. The end of living complacently with my current skills as a writer, the end of not pushing myself to the next level, the end of all my free time? The end of something. And a beginning.

2005 was a hard year around the world, beginning with the tsunamis of last December, the continuation of the war in Iraq, earthquakes, Katrina...maybe tomorrow will mark an end to some of those things, too.

And a new beginning. I guess the first step is faith. I'm hanging on to mine.

Happy New Year.....

The Birth of a Book....

2005-11-17T15:13:00.000-07:00

I can't believe another month has passed. This blog may have to be renamed quarterly progress report. Ah well, I'll do my best to keep up. It has been an exciting month, actually. First, the cover for THE ROOKIE CLUB came back. Take a look on the "Books" page, but I think it's INCREDIBLE. The art department at New American Library, my imprint at the Penguin Group, did a tremendous job. WOW! I always find that once the cover arrives, the book starts to feel real for me. I also received copyedits. I don't know if you all know how the process of a book works, so I'll take this chance to give you the rundown.

A book from start to finish:

1) Come up with brilliant idea
2) Research
3) Plot
4) Research
5) Plot
6) Outline (this one is optional. I, for one, am an outliner!)
7) Draft
8) Draft
9) Draft
10) Draft
11) Draft...this is maybe 6 or 8 months
12) Rewrite
13) Rewrite
14) Rewrite
15) Rewrite
16) Rewrite
17) Rewrite (A writer friend of mine always said, "A good book is not written. It's rewritten." I always HATED
hearing that....Another 2 months spent here
18) Send book into editor
19) Take a short break...and begin at #1 again on next book
20) Revision letter from editor (I suppose there are people that don't get these, but I'm DEFINITELY not one of them.)
21) Revise
22) Revise
23) Revise
24) Revise
25) Revise....ah, another 3 months
26) Send in the revised manuscript
27) Wait
28) Wait
29) Wait
30) Wait...waiting is a big part of publishing. I picture my editor receiving twelve 400-page manuscripts in the same week, all of us authors clamoring, "Read me!! Read me!!"
31) Now, this is the part where ifyou're REALLY LUCKY, you do NOT get another revision letter. Hopefully, your editor tells you, "Wow! The manuscript looks great. I'm going to send it to copy editing." This has NEVER happened to me, but a girl can dream. In my case, set current manuscript aside (somewhere around phase #6 or #7) and return to #21 on this manuscript. Maybe this time you can do it in 6 weeks.
32) Eventually, you get the revision right and the book goes to copy editing. The copy editor line edits the book for style changes, consistency and clarity as well as punctuation and grammar. I don't know who does this job, but it is someone willing to mark EVERY SINGLE little error, remove every extra comma, change God Damn to goddamn in EVERY spot in the book and make note of every time I change the way I write "back-up." "Back up" and "backup" all get changed to "back-up". The copy editor also reminds me when I've changed a character's mother's name from Pamela to Susan somewhere in the middle of the book! Oops!
33) Once the copy editor is done, I get the book back and I go through every change to say "yeah" or "ney." Mostly, I just amaze over how many different ways I find write the same word. And did you know there's no comma in "Oh, God?" I thought for sure there was a comma there. I also write a dedication and acknowledgements now, straining not to forget anyone who helped with the book.
34) Next, I send the copyedits back in and the book goes to page proofs. Page proofs are when it is set on the page to look like a book but it's still unbound. This is where I mail copies to all my really anal friends who always find the typos. You can NOT underestimate the importance of anal friends. I'm very careful about this now....I learned the hard way. When the page proofs came for my second book, RUTHLESS GAME, I was so excited! I started reading. On page 6, the character, Alex, looks up at "the clock on her dash" and I ALMOST DIED. The "L" was missing from the word "CLOCK"! AHHH!! I thought, "Oh GOD! This isn't that type of book!!!" So, if you ever find an Advanced Readers Copy of RUTHLESS GAME, check out the "cock on her dash". Page 6.
35) At this point, while my VERY anal friends and I are reading for typos, the publisher's art department is SLAVING away on the cover art. When I get the cover of the book, I'm always THRILLED. Looking at how they've depicted the book, seeing the title and my name, the book feels real. Plus, the cover is like a gift because it requires almost NOTHING from me!!!
36) Not long after the cover art is done, the publisher prints Advanced Readers Copies or "ARCs". These go to booksellers, newspapers and reviewers to hopefully get some good coverage on the book.
37) I send my final edits in and once those final changes are made, the book goes to print.
38) YEAH!! I'm done.

WAIT! I FORGOT. I'm still drafting the next book. Head down, I get back to work, somewhere around #9!

Fall Progress...

2005-10-19T11:01:00.000-06:00

I can't believe it's time to update my blog once again. I can't believe that people actually write in their blogs more than once a month and manage to write anything else at all. Of course, I also can't believe it's fall. And almost Halloween. I can't believe summer is over or that somewhere, people are already thinking about Thanksgiving and Christmas. I can't believe I am not one of them. For the first decade of my adult life, I prided myself on being the one who was planning where the family would come together for Christmas next year and the next. I was planning vacations three years out, arranging Halloween costumes in August and completing my Christmas shopping well before roasting a Thanksgiving turkey. Okay, truth-be-told, I don't cook. So, I was completing it well before watching someone else roast a Thanksgiving turkey. But, still...

I spent this weekend trying to sit back and look around at things changing. I cut back rose bushes and put the lawn mower away (well, my husband did). We went to a farm and got pumpkins and apples and made applesauce (well, my husband did). I got to do dishes. But, there is something about the fall that seems to make me slow down just a little bit. Maybe it's the way the days are growing shorter so I'm a little less apt to plan nightly activities. Maybe it's the way the leaves are starting to drift from the trees and remind me that nature is slowing down, too. Maybe it's the fact that there aren't visitors in the house every weekend, that we're not rushing around to go camping, swimming, hiking, whatever. We're sitting more. We're even looking at the fireplace, heads tilted just slightly, wondering if it's time to light the first blaze.

And, somehow, this time of year also makes me look forward. Perhaps, again, because I can find the time to see beyond this week or next weekend. The Rookie Club is in copy editing. The art department is slaving away on the perfect cover design. The bound galleys are being sent to some wonderfully talented authors who have volunteer to read it and maybe offer a quote. Soon, we'll be nailing down a release date and I'll be talking about print runs and touring. I plan to make my first stop at my favorite mystery bookstore, Once Upon A Crime, in Minneapolis, MN. That will be sometime in June, so keep an eye out. The other thing this time of year means for me is that the draft of the next book, the follow-up to The Rookie Club, is almost done. Another milestone reached.

Sometimes the cloudy days and the rain make me long for summer, but today, thinking on all that's happened and happening, lingering a moment longer than usual, I am enjoying fall.

I hope you are, too....

True Blog...or Newsletter??

2005-09-13T13:07:00.000-06:00

They say the important thing about blogging is to be consistent and regular about your posts. Ooops! I can tell you two things I'm not--consistent and regular. I'd like to think I'm just special, but I could probably do with a little more consistency and some days I think it would be nice to be "regular". But, I'm not. So we may want to call this a "Newsletter" rather than a "Blog". I just don't want to tick off any real bloggers out there. And I know there are a LOT of you. These days, any time I should be writing, I go online and read blogs. Writers, moms, actors, models, singles, college students...I call this time "research" even though I know research is =not= supposed to take 38 hours a week. I know this because if the research takes 38 hours, it leaves VERY little time for the writing. And unfortunately, that's the part that gets the book done.

If you've ever known a writer (an honest one), you'll know that there is quite a bit of magnetic push and pull between author and book. (Mostly push.) Sure, there are days when it's all I can do to grab a cup of coffee and put socks on before I hit the keys. These kinds of days happen about once every sixteen months. And boy, are they WONDERFUL!!! The rest of the time, I spend each day doing my darndest not to write at all. I can come up with the most creative ways to avoid writing. Email, blogs, IM--those are easy ones. Shopping, errands--dry cleaning, shoe repair, hardware store, the list could go on forever. At the end of one long spell of procrastination, I had actually completed every errand on the never-ending list. I was so desperate not to write, I created a 12-month household budget to avoid writing. Then, I spent two weeks trying to stick by it. Pretty soon, though, the pain of the method of procrastination became worse than the writing itself. So I scraped the budget and actually worked on the darn book...

People sometimes ask how I knew I wanted to be a writer or how I got published. I wrote my first book in a closet in a San Francisco apartment. It had a tiny window at one end and the smallest desk you've ever seen. I could barely fit my big tube monitor and the keyboard on it and I was forced to crank my neck 90 degrees to see the screen while I was typing. The pigeons roosted in the eves just outside the window over my desk and they would coo little epithets at me as I typed. "That makes no sense!" "That sentence stinks!" "Delete. Delete. Delete." Pigeons can be terribly cruel. The other two-thirds of the closet were filled with clothes and bins of things that didn't fit into the twelve inchs of bedroom closet space.

Friends and family looked in that room and shook their heads. "How do you write in here?" I loved it. I loved that little box. I wrote Savage Art and Ruthless Game there. In our next house, I had a real office...for almost six whole months while I was writing Chasing Darkness! Then it became a nursery and I was back to a corner of the guest room. Next, I had a real office again (Cold Silence) for almost nine months before it, too, became a nursery. It's not as if someone ousted me. I was ultimately responsible for those little people who arrived in tiny bundles and booted me from my office. They were and are well worth the sacrifice!

Finally, I got an office downtown where there was NO WAY it would become a nursery since there are laws against leaving your babies downtown when you go home at night. Phew! Safe at least. And here I am. There are no crayons on the floor, no scraps of manuscript that someone has colored over and then cut into little shreds with safety scissors and left for something more interesting--like tape or glue.

Just me and my book. And I look back on all those offices and the closet and I realize, it doesn't matter where I am. It's always just me and the book. And it's good. It's been hard. I've collected something like 150 rejection letters and I know I'm not through. I've had the nice ones that point out the things the editor or agent likes. And I've had the cruel ones. My favorite is the one that went like this:
"Dear Ms Girard,
The title is wonderful. The rest of it sucks."

Hmm. Now, I don't think that's a smart thing to write to someone who spends her days writing about killing people. But, to the best of my knowledge, that man is still alive. So far.

But despite all of that, I am at a wonderful point in my career. Don't quote me because tomorrow could be different. Maybe this is just some fleeting instant of contentment. The Rookie Club will be released next June by Penguin Putnam. (Watch the site for sample chapters coming soon!) Now, I am at work on Hailey Wyatt's story, One Clean Shot.

For those of you who are aspiring to write, you have heard how hard it is--how competitive, how tough to break into. But I am telling you, if it's your passion, it's worth it. As I sit here and write this silly blog, I realize I am so fortunate. I love my job. I have my days, of course. We all do. But when the words come, even just a sentence, and an image is created just perfectly, I sit back in this room and glance around at photographs of the people who cheer me on, of the books that have already been read and enjoyed, of the art that inspires me. I close my eyes and listen to something by Whiskeytown or Jack Johnson and I think, this is what I was meant to do. And I'm doing it.

When I have the days when I'm not sure it makes sense and I get frustrated, sometimes I read this excerpt by Paulo Coelho, author of The Alchemist, as a reminder of what it means to live your dream. Happy writing and reading until next time....

Dream

You are in a store. You try on a garment that fits you perfectly. You try on another, but it's too large, it itches a bit, the sleeves drag on the floor. Both garments sell for the same price. Which do you buy?

It isn't a trick question: You should buy the one that fits better, of course. This logic can also apply to the way we decide to live our lives. We know intuitively that there is a life we long to have, a dream we've harbored--sometimes since childhood. But too often we decide to follow a path that is not really our own, one that others have set for us. We forget that whichever way we go, the price is the same: In both cases, we will pass through difficult and happy moments, hours of solitude, and many complex situations. But when we are living our dream, the difficulties we encounter make sense.

You may have heard the parable of the three men laboring in a field of rocks. Each is asked what he is doing. The first man says, "Can't you see? I'm breaking rocks!" The second man replies, "Can't you see? I'm earning my salary!" The third man answers, "Can't you see? I'm building a cathedral!" This lovely story, which my mother first told me when I was a child, illustrates both the necessity of hard work in realizing a dream as well as the need to keep the vision in your mind's eye--even when others don't see or understand it.

The money we receive in return for our eight hours of work each day can be spent any number of ways; the only thing we cannot buy is extra time. So, during the minutes we have, I believe it is better to live a dream rather than simply dream it. The dream is the start of something greater, something that impels us to make daring decisions. And its' true that the person who pursues a dream takes many risks. But the person who does not runs risks that are even greater.

By Paulo Coelho, author of The Alchemist

A blog beginner...

2005-08-16T12:50:00.000-06:00

So, this blog thing is new for me. Very new. I mean, not even just writing a blog but reading them. Okay, if you must know it was about two weeks when my sister said, "Danielle, you HAVE to do a blog on your site."
"Huh?" was my intelligent response.
"A blog."
I respond with a vacant stare.
My sister's mouth drops. "A web log?"
"What's that?"
"My God. Where have you BEEN?"
I blink a few times and think. Changing diapers, grocery shopping, trying to write a book. I don't think these are the answers she's looking for.
"It's like a diary," she continues.
I nod. I remember those. I even used to keep one.
"But you post it on the web."
Now it's my turn to look wide-eyed and drop my mouth open. "You post a diary on the web? No way. Next you'll say you think I should post pictures of me from the eighth grade."
She laughs. (She remembers those pictures.) "It's not like that. It's thoughts on writing and life and things that interest you."

I can feel my brow furrow as I consider what this blog of mine might look like. My thoughts on the cute skirt I saw but told myself I'd never wear since the last time I wore a skirt was before Clinton was with Monica. Or, the lipstick I bought and left in the car when it was 101 degrees last week and how the seat is sort of pink now. As are the shorts I was wearing that day...and the next.

Perhaps I'd write about the conversation I had with my daughter about why you can't keep a grasshopper in a jar for three days and expect it to survive. And my reaction when she responds, "That's okay, Mommy. It died and I let it go." Hmmm. I could write about the way I hit the middle of my latest book and started to pull my hair out because I thought for sure it was going to be 100 pages too short and then how I discovered (in my sleep, no less) where the plot needed to go next and then realized it would be 300 pages too long. I look back over the list of things I'm thinking and shrug. Maybe I can do this. Maybe a blog is a good idea. Maybe you can tell me. So I'll try it and if I'm boring you to tears, you can tell me and I'll go back to keeping the random thoughts to myself.

Here goes:

I have to start this first blog (this is the official start--that earlier stuff didn't count) with some comments on the new site. As you can see, the website has a whole new look, thanks mostly to three people: an incredibly talented photographer named Audrey Hall (www.audreyhall.com and a superb graphic artist named Ixtla Vaughan (www.getidesign.com). They have reinvented me. Well, they've reinvented the site although I think this reinventing thing is kind of nice. Maybe someone could reinvent my house--make it a bit bigger, remove some of the magic marker stains on my couches--in fact, they'd be welcome to remove the couches all together if they'd bring me something more chic and cool...and also stain resistant, of course.

They would repaint the walls some cool, sophisticated colors and buy all new dishes because the ones I have are more than a decade old. And maybe they could get some more teaspoons. How come I have a full set of 12 forks but only 6 teaspoons? I have wondered if this is from the phase my son went through when we first got him to clear his plate from the dinner table and he assumed that meant into the garbage can.

And while we're at this reinventing, I could use a new wardrobe (but no skirts) and perhaps a fun new car. Something small and red and sporty--a two-seater convertible. Of course, I would have to be able to change into something big enough for carseats with the touch of a button. Wow. That sounds perfect. I bet a car like that would do well. The perfect mom car--something that lets us be feminine and carefree for those twenty minutes a day when we're actually alone without little ones.

I am not complaining, mind you. At this very moment, I am sitting in my office. Rich wood walls on one side, a cool shade of taupe (that I didn't choose but love) and wood wainscoating on two walls. Behind my desk, a bookcase stretches the whole wall, packed with my favorites: Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird and Robert McKee's Story and The Physicians Desk Reference and Gray's Anatomy. Doesn't everyone have these in their library? Plus, the books I'm halfway through: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathon Safran Foer, which is such fun, and the one I just finished: Blink by Malcolm Gladwell, which is truly fascinating. And dozens of others I've loved and my favorite suspense authors Michael Connelly and John Connolly and Lisa Gardner and Lee Child and Jeff Abbott and Harlan Coben and Jonathon King and I could go on and on and on.

The walls are covered with art that my siblings did, with photographs of family and friends. And the book covers are there, too, off to one side to remind me that I can do this--this writing thing. A fan whispers gently in the corner and Richard Buckner's BLOOMED plays softly.

Every once in a while, someone walks by heading to another office and I get a little glimpse through the open door. I love those little tiny tastes of the outside, that moment of company, a smile or even a frown that remind me that though I work alone, the world I'm writing about and writing for is right there, just outside the door...